I went out to visit with my chickens this morning. It just happened to coincide with their laying schedule. I had a seat in my usual spot in front of the nesting boxes and our Plymouth Rock hen, Betty came to say hello.
With Betty on my lap, I watched as the other hens were quarreling about who gets to go into which nesting box. They have each picked out their favorite and sometimes the “pecking order” is still in contention.
The first thing I did was to check in each of the nesting boxes for eggs. Although I had to reach under a couple of our broodier hens, there were still no eggs to be had.
I visited for about a half hour, Betty’s place on my lap turning into a kind of revolving door as the other hens also came to say hello. The hens made their squawking way in and out of the nesting boxes, arguing amongst themselves as to who would go first.
All the while, the chickens were moving freely between outdoors and back into the coop. It was sunny out and a number of them were taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather to enjoy a dust bath outside.
When I decided to make my way back to the house, I checked the nesting boxes just one more time. The hens had gotten busy in those 30 minutes. When I checked this time, I came away with twelve eggs. They still weren’t done. The chickens were still making their way in from outside as I made my way out of the coop.
The image above is the eggs I collected this morning. These are unwashed to preserve the bloom. For our own use, we wash the eggs just before we crack them.
Happy chickens produce the best eggs. Our chickens appear to be very happy.
Other egg laying chickens aren’t so lucky.
The eggs you buy in a supermarket are produced in factories farms. They’re also up to two or three months old by the time you they get to you. These eggs are just as likely to be imported as it is laid here in the US. We import eggs from Mexico, Canada, Indonesia and a bunch of other countries, most of which have lower health standards for the birds.
The average egg-laying factory farm holds a whopping 800,000 birds confined together. Clearly, space on such a factory farm is at a premium and generally comes at the expense of the birds.
Shortly after birth, most chicks are sent down a conveyor belt, where they’re injected with a vaccine to protect them from a common contagion, known as Marek’s Disease. Then, chicks are sexed—a technical term that leads to a tragic process, in which male and female chicks are separated, and the lives of male chicks come to an abrupt end. Although some countries are banning this practice due to its overt cruelty, it’s still widely practiced. In many egg production facilities. As a result, male chicks are separated from females and sent tumbling into a macerating machine, where they are ground up alive. This needless violence, known as chick culling, happens because the egg industry considers male chicks (who will never lay eggs) to be useless. No eggs. No profit.
The baby chicks are then sent to a grow-out barn where they will remain until old enough to start laying eggs. There isn’t much room for the birds here either, and they usually don’t go outside in the egg factory.
Caged Egg Production.
The cruelest and most cost-effective type of egg production confines each bird to a small space that’s equivalent to the size of a piece of letter-sized paper. It’s barely enough space for her to stand on, let alone sit to lay an egg. Spreading her wings is virtually out of the question.. Standing up is, too, since the cages are so low that the graceful combs that top their heads easily scrape against the wiring. These cruel confines are known as battery cages. Battery cages are widely considered among the worst abuses suffered by any animal raised for food, and they’ve been outlawed in the European Union, as well as states like California, Colorado, Michigan, Ohio, and Oregon.
Cage free eggs.
Cage Free eggs are better than battery cages as the chickens aren’t confined to the small cages for their whole lives. That doesn’t mean the chickens were happy.
In egg factory production, the cage free chickens are often housed in cramped spaces with little to no natural light and improper ventilation. They also will go their whole lives without ever being outside.
According to USDA data, in 2021 there were a total of 330.5 million laying hens producing the nations’ eggs. Of these, around 66% (219.4 million hens) were confined to the crushing cruelty of battery cages, while nearly 34% (roughly 111 million hens) were cage-free.
If I were a chicken, I’d much rather be in a cage free environment but that doesn’t mean I’d be comfortable. The number of farms eliminating the cages is increasing but most egg factories in the US are still stuffing their birds into cages.
Free range chickens.
My chickens are free range. Meaning, I generally open the door to their coop and they are free to wander my property throughout the day. They will scratch up bugs, roost in the low branches of the bushes and test my patience by getting into the gardens. We take every precaution to protect them and mitigate any and all threats from predators.
Individually, they’ll come back home to lay their eggs in the nesting boxes if they haven’t already first thing in the morning as Rodney the Rooster crows at the dawn. As dusk comes, the chickens make their way back to the coop where they will roost up for the night, safe and sound behind closed doors.
“Free Range” often doesn’t mean the same thing to others, especially in egg factories.
According to the organization United Poultry Concerns:
Birds raised for meat may be sold as “free-range” if they have government certified access to the outdoors. The door may be open for only five minutes and the farm still qualifies as “free-range.” Apart from the “open door,” no other criteria such as environmental quality, number of birds, or space per bird, are included in the term “free-range.” A government official said: “Places I’ve visited may have just a gravel yard with no alfalfa or other vegetation.”
An organic and “Certified Humane” egg factory farm in New Hampshire exemplifies the misleading muddle of “organic,” “humane,” “free-range,” and “cage-free” advertising. Despite the “Certified Humane” logo, visitors were shocked to find 100,000 debeaked (the process where the baby chicks’ beaks are clipped short) hens crowded into five 400 ft long sheds, each holding “a sea of 20,000 brown hens,” so densely crowded the floor was invisible. Though it was a mild September day in a lush green valley, the visitors said they “couldn’t see any hens enjoying the grass, just several large sheds that took up most of the farm.” The “range,” even if the hens had been outside, was just “a bare patch of dirt between the sheds.”
There are many farms like this across the US. Government standards dictate the birds must have access to the outside. These standards, however fail to address the duration that the chickens must have access, a minimum living space per bird and other oversights.
The Bottom Line.
If you choose not to support these egg factory farming practices, there are options. Statistics say there are about 13 million Americans who are keeping their own chickens at home. Some of these are small flocks to provide eggs for their family. Others have enough of a surplus of eggs to sell.
The best way to combat the large egg factories is to support these backyard chicken keepers who sell eggs. Often you can go directly to the farm. Another option is to support small retail stores and farmers’ markets who buy directly from the farmer.
At Hilltop Haven in Cascade, Maryland, we have a small flock that is registered with the state department of agriculture and we both sell our farm fresh eggs directly to customers who stop by and to small, family run stores in our local area.
When you stop by, you are more than welcome to come meet our chickens. You’re guaranteed to get farm fresh eggs from happy chickens.
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